The institution of marriage is held holy by most of the
world's people because instinct tells them family is the
foundation upon which society is built. The State
recognizes the political and economic value of marriage
and, through a creative contractual concept called
marriage licensing, has converted the
scriptural covenant of marriage into a for-profit
contractual arrangement between State/husband/wife. Rather
than being a priceless blessing unto the home and community
where they can be loved and nurtured into healthy
adulthood, a child, for instance, is now a fruit -- an
asset -- upon which the state may speculate his current and
lifetime of value in the marketplace. Isn't it curious that
churches existing at the pleasure of the State through
501(c)(3) tax exempt status are commonly called upon to
perform the ritual of marriage: The ceremony performed to
create an illusion of scriptural sanctity to disguise the
cold realities of a pending contract with today's
government. Family is the foundation of society. The people
who comprise families should understand their importance
and behave accordingly.

by Virgil Cooper

About 15 years ago, my former wife of 26-1/2 years, filed
for divorce. We had seven children, five daughters and two
sons. Our youngest at the time, our second son, was five
years old.

At the time, I prepared a counterclaim to the Petition for
Dissolution her attorney filed in Domestic Relations (DR)
court. I met one afternoon with the head of the Maricopa
County Superior Court, Marriage License Bureau, in downtown
Phoenix. The marriage license bureau was headed by a young
woman of about age 25. I asked her to explain to me the
general and statutory implications of the marriage license.
She was very cooperative, and called in an assistant, a
tall black man who, at the time, was working on an
operations manual for internal departmental use.

She deferred for most technical explanations to her
assistant. He walked through the technicalities of the
marriage license as it operates in Arizona.

He mentioned that marriage licensing is pretty much the
same in the other states -- but there are differences. One
significant difference he mentioned was that Arizona is one
of eight western states that are Community Property states.
The other states are Common Law states, including Utah,
with the exception of Louisiana, which is a Napoleonic Code
state.

He then explained some of the technicalities of the
marriage license. He said, first of all, the marriage
license is Secular Contract between the parties and the
State. The State is the principal party in that Secular
Contract. The husband and wife are secondary or inferior
parties. The Secular Contract is a three-way contract
between the State, as Principal, and the husband and wife
as the other two legs of the Contract. He said, in the
traditional sense a marriage is a covenant between the
husband and wife and God. But in the Secular Contract with
the state, reference to God is a dotted line, and not
officially considered included in the Secular Contract at
all. He said, if the husband and wife wish to include God
as a party in their marriage, that is a dotted
line they will have to add in their own minds. The
state's marriage license is strictly secular,
he said. He said further, that what he meant by the
relationship to God being a dotted line meant
that the State regards any mention of God as irrelevant,
even meaningless.

In his description of the marriage license contract, he
related one other dotted line.

He said in the traditional religious context, marriage was
a covenant between the husband and wife and God with
husband and wife joined as one. This is not the case in
the secular realm of the state's marriage license contract.
The State is the Principal or dominant party. The husband
and wife are merely contractually joined as
business partners, not in any religious union. They may
even be considered, he said, connected to each other by
another dotted line. The picture he was trying
to paint was that of a triangle with the State
at the top and a solid line extending from the apex, the
State, down the left side to the husband, and a separate
solid line extending down the right side to the wife, a
dotted line merely showing that they consider
themselves to have entered into a religious union of some
sort that is irrelevant to the State. He further mentioned
that this religious overtone is recognized by
the State by requiring that the marriage must be solemnized
either by a state official or by a minister of religion
that has been deputized by the State to perform
the marriage ceremony and make a return of the signed and
executed marriage license to the State. Again, he
emphasized that marriage is a strictly secular relationship
so far as the State is concerned and because it is looked
upon as a privileged business enterprise.
Various tax advantages and other political privileges have
become attached to the marriage license contract that have
nothing at all to do with marriage as a religious covenant
or bond between God and a man and a woman.

By way of reference, if you would like to read a legal
treatise on marriage, one of the best is Principles
of Community Property, by William Defuniak.

At the outset, he explains that Community Property law
descends from Roman Civil Law through the Spanish Codes,
600 A.D., written by the Spanish jurisconsults. In the
civil law, the marriage is considered to be a for-profit
venture or profit-making venture (even though it may never
actually produce a profit in operation) and as the wife
goes out to the local market to purchase food stuffs and
other supplies for the marriage household, she is
replenishing the stocks of the business. To restate: In
the civil law, the marriage is considered to be a business
venture, that is, a for-profit business venture.

Moreover, as children come into the marriage household, the
business venture is considered to have borne
fruit.

Now, back to the explanation by the Maricopa County
Superior Court, Marriage Bureau's administrative assistant.
He went on to explain that every contract must have
consideration.

The State offers consideration in the form of the actual
license itself -- the piece of paper, the Certificate of
Marriage. The other part of consideration by the State is
the privilege to be regulated by statute. He
added that this privilege to be regulated by statute
includes all related statutes, and all court cases as they
are ruled on by the courts, and all statutes and
regulations into the future in the years following the
commencement of the marriage. He said in a way the
marriage license contract is a dynamic or flexible,
ever-changing contract as time goes along -- even though
the husband and wife didn't realize that. My thought on
this is can it really be considered a true contract as one
becomes aware of the failure by the State to make full
disclosure of the terms and conditions. A contract must be
entered into knowingly, intelligently, intentionally, and
with fully informed consent. Otherwise, technically there
is no contract. Another way to look as the marriage
license contract with the State is as a contract of
adhesion, a contract between two disparate, unequal
parties. Again, a flawed contract.

Such a contract with the State is said to be a
specific performance contract as to the
privileges, duties and responsibilities that attach.
Consideration on the part of the husband and wife is the
actual fee paid and the implied agreement to be subject to
the state's statutes, rules, and regulations and all court
cases ruled on related to marriage law, family law,
children, and property. He emphasized that this contractual
consideration by the bride and groom places them in a
definite and defined-by-law position inferior and subject
to the State. He commented that very few people realize
this. He also said that it is very important to understand
that children born to the marriage are considered by law as
the contract bearing fruit -- meaning the
children primarily belong to the State, even though the law
never comes out and says so in so many words.

In this regard, children born to the contract regarded as
the contract bearing fruit, he said it is
vitally important for parents to understand two doctrines
that became established in the United States during the
1930s. The first is the Doctrine of Parens Patriae. The
second is the Doctrine of In Loco Parentis. Parens Patriae
means literally the parent of the country or,
to state it more bluntly, the State is the undisclosed true
parent.

Along this line, a 1930s Arizona Supreme Court case states
that parents have no property right in their children, and
have custody of their children during good behavior at the
sufferance of the State. This means that parents may raise
their children and maintain custody of their children as
long as they don't offend the State, but if they in some
manner displease the State, the State can step in at any
time and exercise its superior status and take custody and
control of its children -- the parents are only conditional
caretakers. He also added a few more technical details.
The marriage license is an ongoing contractual relationship
with the State. Technically, the marriage license is a
business license allowing the husband and wife, in the name
of the marriage, to enter into contracts with third parties
and contract mortgages and debts. They can get car loans,
home mortgages, and installment debts in the name of the
marriage because it is not only a secular enterprise, but
it is looked upon by the State as a privileged business
enterprise as well as a for-profit business enterprise.
The marriage contract acquires property throughout its
existence and over time, it is hoped, increases in value.
Also, the marriage contract bears fruit by
adding children. If sometime later, the marriage fails,
and a divorce results the contract continues in
existence. The divorce is merely a contractual
dissolution or amendment of the terms and conditions of the
contract. Jurisdiction of the State over the marriage,
over the husband and wife, now separated, continues and
continues over all aspects of the marriage, over marital
property and over children brought into the marriage.

That is why family law and the Domestic Relations court
calls divorce a dissolution of the marriage
because the contract continues in operation but in amended
or modified form. He also pointed out that the marriage
license contract is one of the strongest, most binding
contractual relationships the States has on people.

At the end of our hour-long meeting, I somewhat humorously
asked if other people had come in and asked the questions I
was asking? The Assistant replied that in the several
years he had worked there, he was not aware of anyone else
asking these questions.

He added that he was very glad to see someone interested in
the legal implications of the marriage license and the
contractual relationship it creates with the State. His
boss, the young woman Marriage Bureau department head
stated, You have to understand that people who come
in here to get a marriage license are in heat. The last
thing they want to know is technical, legal and statutory
implications of the marriage license. (Laughter)

I hope this is helpful information to anyone interested in
getting more familiar with the contractual implications of
the marriage license. The marriage license as we know it
didn't come into existence until after the Civil War and
didn't become standard practice in all the states until
after 1900, becoming firmly established by 1920. In
effect, the states or governments appropriated or usurped
control of marriages in secular form and, in the process,
declared Common Law, as applicable to marriages,
abrogated.

Pastor Matt Trewhella has been marrying couples without
marriage licenses for 10 years. Many other pastors also
refuse to marry couples with State marriage licenses.

Pastor Trewhella has published a pamphlet for the purpose
of introducing the topic of state licensing of marriage and
give people a starting point for further investigation. If
you would like an audio sermon regarding this matter, or
arrange to see copies of the pamphlet, send a gift of at
least five dollars in cash to: Mercy Seat Christian Church
10240 W. National Ave. PMB #129 Milwaukee, Wisconsin
53227., or visit the church's website at
www.mercyseat.net.

***

The controversy of state-sanctioned gay marriages

by Don Harkins

Gay couples feel like social progress is being made because
some cities and states are allowing them to obtain marriage
licenses. The controversy has gotten a lot of press lately,
largely due to the commonly held belief that the
institution of marriage will be destroyed by state
sanctioning of gay marriages. It's too late. State
licensing has already destroyed the institution of
marriage.

Marriage, in the state licensed sense, is a purely secular,
for-profit arrangement binding parties to contractual
obligations that protect the principle (the state)'s
interests, which are the assets (properties, children)
generated under the auspices of the license.

Marriage, in the spiritual sense, is a covenant between a
man, a woman and their God as the principle; His main
purpose is to provide the union wherein a spiritual base
for the proper rearing of children will prepare them for
well-adjusted adulthood.

Look at the percentages of licensed marriages that fail and
the dollar value attached to the children and properties
over which the state claims contractual rights of disposal.
In the broader sense, the state destroys everything it
licenses to justify the necessity of issuing licenses.

Think about this: The state is no longer beneficent: It is
evil. To invite the state into your marriage by contract of
license means that you have just opted to supercede a
covenant with God and have entered into a three-party
contract between you, your betrothed and Satan. The chances
for happy lives and healthy children are probably greater
if a contract with Satan is not consummated.

For the purpose of raising children, a man and a woman
should view their marriage as entering into a covenant with
God and understand that no state licenses are required in
God's kingdom.

For the purpose of contract, anyone naive enough to
volunteer their relationship into the jurisdiction of the
state, in the hopes of realizing some benefit by obtaining
a state license, should be allowed to do so at their own
peril.

A covenant with God and a license with the state are
completely different issues. Break a covenant with God and
your soul is sacrificed; break a contract with the state
and it takes your worldly possessions and turns your life
into a living hell.

Those who seek state licensure for marriage, gay or
otherwise, have themselves opted to participate in the
demise of the institution of marriage. The state's
interests are best served when licensed marriages dissolve
and it's able to swoop down one people's wrecked lives and
take possession of whatever value remains and assign
liability for future collections.

Men and women in love should be married before witnesses in
the eyes of God and should never sign a separate contract
with the secular state. If those of us who can be married
in the eyes of God stopped begging for the state to license
our marriage, and we strengthened the sanctity of marriage
through our commitments to our spouse and to God, then the
state's licensing of gay marriages can be given the exact
amount of attention it deserves: None. Let those who cannot
be married in the eyes of God and the state have each other
-- for better or worse -- and let us get on with
reestablishing our relationships with God, not the state,
as our anchor.